breeze in the trees

I'm in Himachal Pradesh, in the north of India, and I'm on one of the small wooded paths that wend their ways up the hillsides hereabouts. And just now, for a few minutes, I was lost in thought. I rather like that expression: lost in thought. We so often get lost in thought. Thoughts grab our attention and take us away from our immediate surroundings. Whilst we are busy with the thoughts, we are lost, we have no awareness of where we are.

Luckily on this occasion there came a sudden gust of wind, a breeze rustling the trees, but not everywhere. There seemed to be just a small patch, where I was walking in that moment. And that, that breeze, in conjunction with the trees that rustled with its influence, that breeze brought me back. And instantly I was lost no more. I am here, present with the moment, with the trees, with the breeze, with the sounds of the birds and the innumerable hoverflies.

And being present, right now in this moment, there is a deep mystery in the air. I love sensing this, sensing the mystery of life. Sometimes I use the word suchness. It's here, all around me, and in me too. I can sense it in the leaves, as they flutter slightly in the breeze. I can sense it in the sound of those hoverflies. It's in the air. It's in the rocks. It's in the soil of the path. It's in the centre of my being.

And when I'm tasting this suchness, when I allow myself to sense it, to feel it, to be it, here in this space I am no longer lost. Here we are, at last, ourself, our deepest self. In this place we are whole, with nothing to prove, nothing needing to be achieved. There's no justification needed for anything anymore, when we are dwelling in this mystery of life, when we have remembered, when we have returned to being this mystery, this suchness. This is the space that I have returned to just now, thanks to the breeze in the trees.